Your small business …

Choosing the artists way brings with it a good dose of magic; there is magic in the art of acting, in the poetic shades the artist seeks, more often than not even the artists personal life has a strong lyrical quality. All this being true, it is still important for the artist, (in particular the performing artist) to think systematically about what they do and how they’re going to do it. There are a number of mind-frames that allow the actor to think forward about the decisions they make, to allow magic in their craft, but to seek due diligence and systematic effort in the act of getting their art to a waiting world. One of my favorite mind-frames is the idea of the actor as a small business. And as with so many small businesses they fail to grow not because of effort, hard work, or talent, but because of a simple misunderstanding about who’s doing the thinking for the small business and when.

So let’s look at that model of the actor as a small business: You have a front window, you have to make it look specific, you have to be clear to the customer base you seek and about what you represent. Nobody’s going to walk into a store if they can’t figure out what it’s selling. You have advertising costs, those headshots, resumes, and tapes. Don’t skimp on those costs, look at the successful companies you re-visit again and again, they are always on the move with their advertising, always looking for the next edge to what they’re reaching out with. Your small business has ongoing training costs; the most successful companies in the world have robust human resource departments. You’ll never progress just relying on old information, educating your staff is a fulltime job; keep them on their toes. You have healthcare costs, it’s important to keep your staff fit and well cared for. They need to have a place to work out and stay healthy. And, like any small business that wants to grow, you have a plan for that growth. A simple five-year, three-year, one-year, six month, and one month, plan of action that allows you to be systematic about your growth. Well, if it was that simple all small businesses would be mega corporations by now, but they’re not. The backbone of the American economy is the small business. Eighty percent of all business is small business. Yet most small businesses either fail outright or remain flat in growth, why? There are a number of reasons that a small business might not accomplish its goals, but the most common reason is the phenomenon of the Two Hats. In your average small business the owner is also the principle employee. In that capacity they are always changing hats, quickly one to the other. In the hurly burly of being both the owner and the principle employee the hats get mixed up, the owner acts like an employee, and the employee like the owner. Ever feel like you were working for your agent? Then you’ve felt the phenomenon of the Two Hats.

No small business can succeed when the owner and the employee get mixed up. When you’re trapped in that mix-up it becomes impossible to make strategic decisions. The small business stays on the ground making every decision a tactical one and rarely seeing forward to the strategic. I’ll wager that as an actor you try to get every job you are asked to audition for. Am I right? If you have, you have experienced what it’s like to make only tactical decisions when in some cases strategic ones might be called for. Tactical is on the ground and in the moment, it’s where the employee lives. Strategic is projecting forward to make choices that work in the long run; strategic is where the owner lives.

It’s a mind frame; it takes discipline to change it. If you expect to be rid of the phenomenon of the Two Hats you’ll need to do a little groundwork, in other words … get tactical. Get a pad of paper that lives with you wherever you go, (Do you admire the work of Baz Luhrman? He has a pad that hangs around his neck all the time.) Then get a pad of paper that lives at home. As you go through your day for the next month or two keep a list of the places you wear your hats. Your owner hat might be when you’re at acting class, getting headshots, or dealing with your representation. Places you have your employee hat on might be when you eat right to stay fit or have to go to the gym when you would rather stay in bed. Make clear distinctions about these hats and write them down. If you think that you will change and become aware of how this works by thinking about it, you’re wrong. You have to write it down and do so for an extended period of time if you want to change. At the end of the day, sit down with your pad from the world and write down on your pad at home the distinctions of owner and employee. By transferring from one pad to another you will not only redouble the learning experience, but you’ll be creating a clearinghouse to collate this information. Within a month you should have a pretty good idea where you are an owner, and where an employee. Keep up the list making and you’ll be a master of this discipline in no time.

Understanding your position as a small business clears the poetic mind to be creative. Understanding the Two Hat phenomenon allows for clear thinking. Clear thinking allows for distinctions between strategic and tactical decisions. Writing down and collating that thinking gives you the foundation to make good decisions. Making those decisions allows for even and actionable growth as an artist, a person, and a small business, and … growth is good!

“Where” you ask, “do I find the characters I am to play?”

The answer is simple; they are all around you. The actor is a part of the human circus spinning all around him, all he is to do is be still long enough to look and listen.

Take for example this description of Pastor Anthony Wibert; dear friend and long time confidant of our second president John Adams, who served from 1797 to 1801 and is considered one of the greatest of our founding fathers. Wibert held the pastoral position of Adams hometown church in Braintree, Massachusetts for forty-five years, and the two men’s friendship endured at least that long.

Wibert was older than Adams by a number of years and it was said he was eccentric yet warmly received. Adams, who made a habit of taking notes about the people around him, wrote of Wibert

“Parson Wibert is crooked; his head bends forward, his nose is a large Roman nose with a prodigious bunch of protuberance upon the upper part of it. His mouth is large and irregular, his teeth black, and foul, and craggy. His eyes are a little squinted; his visage is long and lank. His complexion wane and his cheeks are fallen. His chin is large and lean. When he prays at home he raises one knee upon the chair and throws one hand over the back of it, with the other he scratches his neck and pulls the hair of his wig. When he walks he heaves away and swags one side so that he steps almost twice as far with one foot as he does the other. When he speaks, he cocks and rolls his eyes, shakes his head and jerks his body about. Wibert is slovenly and lazy, and here’s the thing - has great delicacy of mind, judgment and humor. He is superb in the pulpit; he is … a genius.”

So, the next time you find yourself scratching your head for the body and nature of some one person you are charged with playing … why not pick up a history book? Or just take a hint from Adams, a fellow who started more than a few good things in his lifetime – and look around you. Don’t get stuck in your head. Ideas abound all around you; the spring for the fountain of inspiration inside of you is fed by the world outside of you; and keep a wary eye out for the likes of Pastor Wibert, there may be another one of him swaging and heaving around your world.

Something to pin on your wall ...

Just in case you haven’t been pouring over your Shakespeare lately, I thought I might share with you his thoughts. As a director, writer, and actor, he dealt with all aspects of theater especially directing the actors in their performance. He places here, in Hamlets speech to the Players, what surly must have been his prescription to actors he worked with daily. One wonders at how, with surefooted and eloquent poise, he tells his gang to let their hearts and thoughts tell the tale, rather than any exaggerated movement.

“Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue, but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwigpated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant, it out-herods Herod, pray you avoid it.”

 This speech still remains the best acting instruction ever written and deserves a place on your wall. You might do with a glance or two at it while hurrying out the door to an audition – I promise you applying it will do you much more good than any weighty tome about, “How To Audition” … yech. And, interestingly enough, seems to foretell the popularity of the dreaded reality based television … can you tell where?

The Value of Blood Sport…

Let’s examine what goes into the actor’s job description when they’re building a scene:

You have to know whom you are playing. They’re hopes and dreams, where they come from, where they want to be. What they fear why they fear it, how they act on those dreams and fears, and what gets in their way. You have to have specific details about what they’re talking about. When mentioning a person, place, or thing, have clear images and sensations in the back of your own mind to call out. You have to know where you are. What does this place mean? What promise or dread does it hold? You have to know what’s around you. Do the objects that you touch and live within have positive or negative influences on the character you play? You have to know whom you’re with and what they can do for, or against you. You have to make personal choices about them, invest something that you need from your life in the scene so you speak from the heart, and not just technically. You have to know the dialogue, so that it will work for you, not against you. You have to make choices about how your character walks and talks. Every character’s history had built their body a certain way, you must attend to that.

That is a hell of a lot of stuff to do - but doing all that work still doesn’t make a scene come to life.

Acting is a blood sport. It is the trust of the Gladiators. In other words … we all know that ultimate goal is to kill each other, but we trust that we play by the rules. Where most actors go wrong is they do all the hard work described in the paragraph above, and then use it just to cooperate with the other person in the scene. Every scene is a fight; sometimes literally, sometimes hidden deep beneath the layers of cover, but always a fight. We get involved with a scene because we are unsure of the outcome - Will Faye tell Jack what she knows about her daughter? Will Merrill die before she has a chance to get to Bills heart? Will Dennis ever get that truck off his ass? Or, will Judy stand up to that mean old Wizard? Every good story, every good scene, consists of at least two competing ideas or needs, both fighting to win the heart or mind of the other. If you take all your good work and use it to cooperate with the scene or the person in it, you’re cheating us of our involvement in the story. Fight for something, do whatever it takes to win, kill to get it if you have to, but kill by the rules. The rules are important. The foolish version of blood sport acting, (the version without rules) is the Rude Boy Actor. They’re famous for mumbling, fouling up blocking, fouling up lines, and generally making trouble outside the rules of engagement. These fools are self-involved assholes, and have substituted selfish behavior for disciplined action. They may thrill us from time to time. But they never really win, and they grow old fast and ugly.

Now you know the paths and the pitfalls. Do your work; its fun and a challenge. But be very clear that all the work won’t amount to a hill of beans unless it’s opened up by the skeleton key of conflict. Find the fight and jump in swinging, and let the audience enjoy … the value of blood sport.

A Long Winded Letter…

I got a friendly Email the other day from a close friend of a former student who had audited class once or twice. He was asking me if I had the time to coach him on something. And while I didn’t have the time, in my response I tried to help him by explaining what it is to do well in an audition. It was late, I rambled, but I looked at it again … and it’s a really good explanation of what is the basis of our work at the Studio. So, in the cause of you being able to explain to your friends and family about where you’ve been spending all your time lately, and why it works; I thought I would take out the names of the people mentioned in the letter to keep it private, and share it with you. So, enjoy if you will, one late night ramble about what works in front of the camera.

CT

Hey ------,

I remember you, and thank you very much for your kind words about the Studio and my work. I have an embarrassment of riches it seems; so many of the Studio members and many of my long term clients landed on series as regulars, grabbed top spots in films, and in a couple of standout cases did both, that I have very little time to take a coaching. Even those clients at the Studio who didn’t land jobs are charged up, as a rising tide seems to float all boats. All that craziness, and it's a week off for us. I was supposed to be chilling in a garden somewhere and recharging my batteries for what will be a crazy creative summer at the Studio, and instead I'm using the time to coach all the folks that did so well this pilot season, (June is the month those shows that got picked-up start pre-production to shoot in July) and haven't seen a moments rest since my vacation started.

Has ----, told you yet that I'm long winded?

So, all this is my long-winded way of saying that I don't have any spots until the end of next week and I think you said your audition was this Friday. If you could get it pushed back it would be a pleasure to work with you; I think coaching is critically important. I coach on just about everything I do, from exercising to how I run my business -- coaching works. I wish I could be of service to you. I can recommend a coach who works for me and is excellent. He's busy too, but maybe not quite as busy as I am. Let me now if you want his name. And don't overlook ------ as a resource; she's an excellent actress and it’s the excellent actor’s you look for when looking for a teacher.

On a side note: A director told a round table at the Studio a story once, he said, "I was casting a thing I wrote and one person after another came in and trashed it. It seemed like we would never find the guy, I was starting to think it was me and I had to go back to the drawing board with my writing. Then all of a sudden this guy walks in and just nails it - I mean he owned it and none of us knew why, he just did." What that director said stuck with me and I thought about it for many days, “What was the difference, why that guy?" And then I realized, "He didn't walk into the room and nail it, he had it nailed weeks ago. I know you get all excited about your acting, but God damn it - good acting and a dime will get you a cup of coffee, it’s who you are that we cast. To thine own self be true. Easier said than done.”

I know that I make a pretty-penny coaching people. I’m not dismissing coaching, as I said I use it all the time. I’m just dismissing the way almost every other asshole coaches. While I take a bow for being self-centered, think about this: Coaching never means, “how to play the role.” Not what to do right, what to do wrong, how not to screw up, or how to be a goooood actor. What I try to do is guide the actor - to see how to use the text and the context to hopefully help them reveal themselves in front of the camera. I show them how to be present in the room. Not a bunch of bells and whistles, just who you are. Sounds simple, but it's a lifetime’s work. And when you get it, we'll want to watch you. That's how you get in the movies. That’s how you make the role come to you, rather than you going to it. Film is different that way … it is fundamentally different. That's what we do at the Studio. Success in film and television keeps eluding good actors because they think it has something to do with acting. In fact, the only thing it has to do with acting is that it is by living the actor’s life, the trauma of an actor’s life; the very thing we try so hard to avoid, only by living that way do we stand a chance of becoming who we are in private ... who we are in public -- and that's what we want to watch.

I write too much. Hope we can work together in the future sometime.

Peace,

Cameron Thor